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3 Innovative Employment Solutions in the Gig Economy Era

Now more than ever, American workers are becoming more involved in non-traditional forms of employment. With so many workers now flocking to flexible work options, employers must respond with innovative employment solutions.

The nature of work is changing, as are the priorities of workers. New generations of employees crave flexibility and the opportunity to increase their earnings. New models of work that satisfy these demands are growing in popularity.

Business owners are taking note. Of the roughly one-third of employers who currently use on-demand workers, over half plan to increase their non-traditional hiring in 2017. Here is a closer look at three innovative employment solutions that are on the rise due to the growth of the gig economy.

1. Project-specific short-term hiring

The rise of freelance platforms such as Upwork, Freelancer, and Fiverr, have made it possible for employers to easily find qualified freelancers who can perform work on a project or short-term basis. These freelance platforms display profiles, skills test scores, work history, client lists, and other relevant information about their on-demand freelancers.

This means that employers who need to find qualified talent can quickly find candidates for any job. The ever-increasing level of professionalism from freelance platforms gives companies new employment solutions and legitimate alternatives to traditional hiring. This is particularly useful for short-term and project specific work. Upwork alone now has over 12 million registered freelancers and is allowing big business to develop hybrid teams of full-time employees and short-term freelancers to fill talent gaps.

Consider PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) new Talent Exchange program which allows large enterprises tap into on-demand labor for short-term projects. For example, The Washington Post is now using this platform to find, hire, and deploy freelance writers on an as-needed or project-specific basis.

2. Instantly increase your footprint

By tapping into the power of on-demand workers, enterprises can immediately expand their company’s reach and influence outside of their immediate geographic area. This allows businesses to provide nationwide services they may not otherwise be able to provide. For example, through WeGoLook’s on-demand workforce of over 30,000 Lookers, companies can perform a number of professional tasks such as property inspections or damage assessments anytime and anywhere. Instead of hiring masses of full-time or part-time workers across the country, many enterprises are leveraging on-demand workers to build a nationwide presence.

3. Workforce supplementation

Many companies can benefit from supplementing their staff with freelancers on an as-needed basis. For example, if you have two developers working full time on a software program, but they are overwhelmed and struggling to meet a deadline, you can easily hire a freelance developer to ease the burden on your full-time employees.

Supplementing your workforce in this way removes the need to hire employees whenever demand exceeds the supply of work your current workforce can deliver. Consider a company like Bloomberg that supplements jobs like Marketing Manager and Robotics Camera Operator with freelancers.

On-demand staffing in the freelance economy can cost up to 40 percent less than traditional temp staffing. This employment solution also saves time. According to Upwork, “If they had been unable to hire a freelancer, 84 percent of hiring managers said they would have been forced to delay, cancel, or extend project workloads.”

Final thoughts

If you are an employer, then the expansion and rapid growth of the gig economy should be on your radar. Alternative employment solutions can improve your hiring options by tapping into new innovations and tools. On-demand workers can make you less dependent on traditional salaried employee recruitment and traditional temp agency hiring. This gives your business more options and provides hiring managers with more freedom.

In 2016, global insurtech investments totaled $1.7 billion, with both the volume and value of deals roughly doubling since 2014. This doesn’t include companies that are self-funded, have traditional financing, or work with angel investors to bring innovation to the $4.5 trillion global insurance industry. And, every segment of the insurance value chain has been impacted by those investments, including claims.

We are excited to announce our partnership with the CCC ONE platform to help insurance policyholders file self-service claims remotely. CCC ONE is a cloud platform developed by CCC Information Services, Inc. (CCC), a leading software as a service provider to the automotive, insurance, and collision repair industries. Founded in 1980, CCC leverages the CCC ONE platform to link a vast network of more than 350 insurance carriers, more than 24,000 repair facilities, hundreds of part suppliers, dozens of third-party data and service providers, and car manufacturers.

Through this partnership, CCC’s customers can electronically connect to our on-demand field force of more than 40,000 well-trained Lookers who are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Our Lookers are always standing by to help insurers provide a high-level of service at a critical point in the claims process. When assigned, one of our Lookers will gather imagery and information in the field, in any U.S. location—even rural areas—in as little as one day.

How it works

When a claim qualifies for CCC’s mobile channel, policyholders are instructed by their insurer how to capture and upload photos of the damage via their smart device. However, when the policyholder requests assistance, or they do not complete the process within the insurer-defined period, insurers can send us an electronic notification through CCC ONE.

As soon as we receive the request for assistance, we dispatch a nearby Looker to take and upload photos to CCC ONE. Once the photos are uploaded, they are immediately available for insurance appraisers to initiate the claims or repair process.

Additionally, any of CCC’s customers can directly assign claims to WeGoLook through CCC ONE. Once assigned, we immediately dispatch Lookers to capture and upload photos and other requested information from the site of the claim.

It’s a win, win, win

We’re very excited about this partnership the many ways it allows WeGoLook to offer value to policyholders and insurers alike. With CCC and WeGoLook, policyholders gain an even more seamless experience when filing self-service claims. Insurers get access to our on-demand workforce through the CCC platform to help them provide even better service to their insurance industry clients.

And for us, this partnership furthers our mission, and the mission of our parent company, Crawford & Company, to help restore and enhance lives, businesses, and communities.